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created 10 months ago | Tagged: |
Geills
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It seems you can hardly turn on the television these days without seeing accusations of an educator in a position of authority taking illegal sexual advantage of a young boy. I'm not referring to the Jerry Sandusky trial. I'm referring to the trailers for the new Adam Sandler film, "That's My Boy." It's unfortunate timing that the film, about a 13-year-old boy who was seduced by his teacher, impregnated her, then maladroitly raised the child while she was in prison, is being released at the same time the former Penn State assistant football coach is being tried on charges of sexually abusing students. While the former is presented as a comedy and the latter viewed as a tragedy, they're both about adults taking heinous advantage of children, regardless of the status of the victim. I'm just not finding the subject funny at the moment, especially when the media is reminding me hourly of the tragic, real life outcomes of that type of behavior. "Yes, but Adam Sandler's teacher was hot!" a fellow viewer told me. "All guys have fantasized about doing it with their teachers." There's even a scene in the movie where grown men confess to their schoolboy crushes and laugh about it. Besides, the teacher got hers -- she went to prison. Let's put the shoe on the other foot: I'm thinking most people would be creeped out by a "comedy" with the premise of a football coach seducing a 13-year-old girl and getting her pregnant. Imagine the laughs when, as in "That's My Boy," the rest of the movie covers the 13-year-old girl making heinous mistakes while raising the baby, followed by the wounds that child must heal as she attempts to become a functioning member of society. That's not a comedy -- that's almost "Precious." The TV series "Teen Mom" doesn't even go that far.
